


Five Things That Never Happened

by coffeeandcheesecake



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, season 4, season 5, season 6, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:24:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandcheesecake/pseuds/coffeeandcheesecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things in four years that never happened and never will (maybe).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things That Never Happened

**I.**

“We’re making it up as we go,” Castiel says, and Dean _knows._

 

Porcelain coffee mugs leap from the cabinets and shatter on the floor; Chuck laments as the walls shake and harsh, glaring light makes itself known through the window blinds.

 

“It’s the archangel!” Dean can barely hear Castiel over the screaming whine of his righteous brothers.

 

 "I’ll hold them off, I’ll hold them all off!” and Dean wants to say _you can’t_. He wants to say _you’re just one little renegade angel, pal, and I’ve heard about archangels, and they're going to barbecue your ass in molasses._

But Castiel is gazing up at the light with such a fierceness that Dean suddenly doesn’t even believe himself.

 

“Just stop Sam!” Castiel shouts, and he reaches for Dean’s face.

 

Dean screws his eyes shut, preparing for fingers on his forehead and the horrible squeezing feeling he gets in his gut from being angel-zapped, but it doesn’t come. Instead, there is a hand on his cheek, a rough palm, and then lips on his, quick and hard and sorry. An apology.

 

And then he’s gone. Silence rings in his ears. Dean has no time to wonder whether that was _I love you_ or _see you later_ or _thank you_ : he has his brother to find.

 

So he runs, and he runs, and he doesn’t think about how that could have been _goodbye._

**II.**

Castiel looks like he’s never seen someone laugh before, and Dean can’t stop. The silent car ride home is punctuated by bursts of snorting, and after a few minutes, Castiel starts to get annoyed.

 

“Now it just feels like you’re mocking me,” he says, huffy, and Dean wipes his eyes on his sleeve.

 

“It’s _funny_ , Cas.”

 

“Maybe my ineptitude is funny to _you,_ Dean, but to me it’s embarrassing.”

 

Dean stops the car outside the house and Castiel moves to get out, but Dean grabs his sleeve.

 

“Don’t be mad, dude,” Dean says, a grin still plastered across his face. “I’m not making fun of you, I swear. It’s just-- you’re an angel, and--”

 

“Exactly,” Castiel scowls. “I’m an angel and I should be able to-- you _paid_ that woman, and I couldn’t even--”

 

“Hey.” The grin slides off Dean’s face. “Dude, I didn’t know it mattered that much to you.”

 

Castiel glares at him.

 

“It didn’t,” he says. “Until I saw how much it _amused_ you that I failed so greatly. Excuse me.”

 

But Dean doesn’t let go of Castiel’s sleeve. He tugs him closer, closing his other hand in a fist in Castiel’s lapel. Castiel furrows his brow.

 

“Dean?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “Come here.”

 

Castiel shuffles closer obediently. “Dean, what--?”

 

“I keep my promises, all right?” Dean says, his voice dropping low. Castiel is close enough now to feel Dean’s breath ghost across his lips.

 

“All right,” Castiel breathes.

 

Dean leans into his space, whispers, “I’m going to show you how to do this,” and nudges his nose. Castiel’s eyes flutter closed, and Dean brushes their lips together, the briefest kiss, almost asking for permission. Castiel chases his lips, so Dean returns deeper, more insistent, sliding his tongue into Castiel’s mouth, and then it’s frantic and fervid, Dean pressing him up against the door of the car, settling between his legs, Castiel scratching fingers through the hair on the back of Dean’s neck. When Dean traps Castiel’s bottom lip between his teeth and Castiel moans, they break apart, panting slightly, and when Dean grins at him, Castiel feels his borrowed heart stutter.

 

They don’t speak as they straighten their clothes and head into the house, and then Raphael has wings that spark and crackle and God might be dead, so there are no more stolen kisses in cars that night. But Castiel has felt Dean’s hands on his chest, on his hip, on his cheek, and, as he knows so well, there are some roads you go down where you can’t turn around and go back.

 

**III.**

“I rebelled _for this?_ _So you could surrender to them?_ ” __

Dean’s not sure which part of him hurts the most: his nose is definitely broken, and his back is probably scraped up pretty good from being thrown against a brick wall. Castiel hits him again, and again, and again, and his shoulder blades feel like they’re cracking, and his ribs are crushing his heart, and the worst part is, he wants it. He wants to beg Castiel to break him into a thousand little pieces and scatter him across the world. _Just end it_ , he wants to say, _end me. Now. Please._

_“_ Cas, please,” he begs, but he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. __

Castiel slams him up against the wall and leans close.

 

“I gave _everything_ for you,” he snarls. “And this is what you give me?”

 

Dean closes his eyes against the pain, against the truth written in every furious line on Castiel’s face. He expects, wishes for, wants another punch to his face, his stomach. He wants Castiel’s fingers around his neck. He wants to feel his bones shatter, feel his last breath leave him.

 

“You have no idea,” Castiel hisses, and then he covers Dean’s mouth with his own.

 

Castiel does not kiss with sugar and milk; he kisses bitter, mean, burning, livid. There’s blood on both their lips now, blood on their tongues, blood on Castiel’s hands that keep Dean pinned to the wall. But this is a war that Dean can win, so he attacks Castiel’s mouth with equal fury, pouring frustration into the kiss, reaching up to grab ahold of Castiel’s hair.

 

Castiel presses a knee up between Dean’s legs and Dean can feel how completely and totally aroused they both are, and he tries to move, tries to find friction, but Castiel shoves him to keep him still, snarls “ _no”_ , presses up against him, six feet of solid, furious heat.

 

“You have _no idea,_ ” Castiel repeats, and Dean nods because it’s true.

 

Castiel throws him onto the ground and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his face.

 

“I am taking you back to your brother,” he says, and Dean is struck by how terrified he is of the angel standing before him.

 

It’s easy to fear death, to fear pain, and suffering, and war, and malice, but for Dean, Castiel has fierce, murderous, furious love, and Dean has never been more scared.

 

**IV.**

“There’s one more thing you can do for me,” Dean says, and Castiel hears _one more thing I can use you for, and then we’re done_.

 

“Anything,” Castiel says, and he means it.

 

Dean gives the woman on the bed a long, loving stare and Castiel feels a tightening in his chest.

 

“I ruined their lives,” he says. “Make it so they won’t remember.”

 

Castiel almost refuses. _How dare you?_ he wants to shout. _How dare you leave them unable to protect themselves? How dare you ask this of me without their permission? How dare you ask me to steal the honor of having known you?_

 

But he doesn’t. He’s too sad, too desperate, too lost in the sunken recesses of Dean’s rose-rimmed eyes to say no.

 

“Get out,” he says.

 

Dean strides quickly to the door and shoulders past Castiel, clearly intent on leaving without saying another word, but Castiel stops him with a hand, a look.

 

“I will do this because _you asked_ ,” Castiel says. “You are not allowed to hate me for this.”

 

“I don’t hate you,” Dean spits, not meeting his eyes.

 

Castiel tightens his grip on Dean’s arm. “You don’t?”

 

Dean glares at him, but there’s no venom in it, only tired resignation. Castiel moves into his space tentatively, brings his hand up from Dean’s arm to his cheek.

 

“Don’t,” Dean says, but it’s barely a refusal, and he doesn’t say anything when Castiel moves closer.

 

Castiel doesn’t close his eyes when he brushes his lips against Dean in a feather-light kiss, but Dean’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, and he doesn’t push Castiel away.

 

“Please,” Dean whispers.

 

Castiel wishes he knew what Dean was asking for ( _please don’t, please stay, please get out of my life, please stop what you’re doing_ ) but he can’t read the tight lines of Dean’s face, so he pulls back.

 

“Go now,” he says. “I’ll take care of Lisa and Ben.”

 

Dean does not meet his eyes as he leaves, and Castiel watches him go, knowing that he will most likely never be that close to Dean again.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says to Dean’s retreating back. “I’ve always wondered what that would be like.”

 

**V.**

Dean holds out the coat, bloodstained and crumpled.

 

“Dumb to keep,” he says, “I know. I _saw_ you... _dissolve_ , or whatever. But just in case.”

 

Castiel shakes his head, tries to move away, but Dean presses on.

 

“I never stopped wanting to fix it either,” he says, and Castiel stops. “So we’ve got something in common. Just... take it.”

 

Castiel looks up at him with eyes so sad Dean’s heart almost breaks. The sadness of two men, neither of whom have any idea who they are.

 

“Please,” Dean says, and Castiel shakes his head.

 

“You more than anyone know why I can’t,” he says, bitter and broken.

 

Dean steps forward and shakes out the coat until it hangs, full-length, from his hands. He steps close enough to Castiel that he could press their foreheads together if he wanted to, and he wraps the trenchcoat around Castiel’s shoulders.

 

“I know you don’t believe in yourself right now,” he says. “But I believe in you. I carried this coat with me for six months. Because part of me always believed that you’d come back. And I knew that when you did, you’d need this coat.”

 

Castiel huffs a barely-there laugh.

 

“You believe in me?” he asks faintly. “That’s a miracle I thought I’d never see.”

 

And Dean can’t stop himself, because it’s been six months of holding that coat tight to his chest when he moved his belongings from trunk to trunk, town to town, when he wanted to be holding something else, someone else, and seeing Cas wrapped up in his coat is like getting something back that was lost, so he surges forward and presses his lips to Castiel’s.

 

It’s like giving something away and getting something back at the same time, to have Castiel in his arms like this, smelling like suburbs and blood and lake water and angel, all at once. To maybe have someone to belong to again, and to have someone that belongs to him. It’s years and years of never saying anything, never seeing it, never understanding or acting or even acknowledging the existence of this _thing_ that’s always been there, since the first moment in that barn when the shadow of a great pair of wings turned everything he ever thought he knew completely upside down.

 

It’s _believing_.

 

Castiel doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but he pours himself into Dean like he’s been waiting for this moment forever (maybe he has) and when he pulls back after a few moments to rest his forehead against Dean’s, he’s smiling.

 

“Well, if you can find something to believe in,” Castiel says. “Then so can I.”

 

He stuffs his arms through the sleeves of the coat, and _there he is_ , old Cas, _his_ Cas, his fierce, angry angel of the Lord, on a mission. Then there’s a familiar palm on his forehead, and Cas sends him, once again, to save his baby brother.

 

**And One That Will?**

There’s a cave in Purgatory that is dark and damp. There are fingers that fumble, there are lips that meet, there are apologies and promises pressed into skin.

 

_I will never harm you._

_I will trust you._

_We will find a way to keep this._

And sometimes it’s to protect and reassure, after close encounters with monsters. Sometimes it happens while they’re laughing, and they can feel each other smiling. Sometimes it’s angry, because time has been wasted. Sometimes it hurts and hurts and hurts, and there’s blood in their mouths and on their hands and nothing they say or do can make it better. But sometimes it’s like believing again, believing that one day they will be like this in a bed, or in Dean’s car, or on the couch next to Sam, who will make faces and groan but be _really, really_ happy for them.

 

And those moments give them both hope.

 

Soon they will get out of the dark, damp cave.

 

Soon, they will be home.


End file.
